JACE (Lane Brothers Book 3) (106 page)

They fumbled with one another’s clothes. Something about knowing this would be the last time made it all the more arousing. But they weren’t here for loving sex, not this time. The loving part had flown at the window when Thomas went behind Sasha’s back. This was about pure sensation.

In many ways, it felt like the first time they’d ever had sex. Sasha told Thomas exactly what to do, where to touch, when to lick and how. She wanted as much from Thomas Lloyd as she could get, as many orgasms as he could give her. He seemed to relish the challenge.

They were two orgasms in when there was a knock at the door.

Sasha let her head drop between her arms. “Absolutely fucking typical.”

Thomas pulled out of her and wrapped a nightgown around his body. He went to the door and looked through the peephole. “It’s Pippa.”

“Tell her I’m not playing her game anymore,” Sasha said.

But Thomas ignored her request. He opened the door to Pippa.

She strode right in, her heels clacking against the floor. Sasha’s nakedness didn’t seem to faze her one bit. She crossed her arms and glared at Sasha.

“What?” Sasha said. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?”

“I hear you’re dropping us. Leaving us in the lurch.”

“How did you find that out?” Sasha replied, coolly. She wasn’t going to rise to any more of this bullshit.

“Because you booked a fucking plane ticket in your own fucking name,” Pippa cried.

Sasha stared her down. “Yes. I’m leaving. And it’s because of you. Because of your stupid engagement stunt.”

“My stupid engagement stunt was to save your arse, darling.”

“Really? And how’s that?”

Pippa was furious. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and held it up to Sasha. “Because of this.”

Sasha took the phone and glanced at the internet page on display. It was Chris.

“He’s selling his story,” Pippa said. “Everyone’s fascinated by this small town girl who landed Thomas Lloyd and Chris is prepared to tell them
everything.
About your romance. Your ambitions. Your short comings. Your supposed abandonment of your family and transformation into a fame hungry whore.”

“No,” Sasha gasped. “Chris would… he would never do that.”

“Well, he did and he has. He’s going to tell them about how you cheated on Thomas with him. You’re about to become a reviled woman. So, the way I look at it, you’re still in the game. My game. And that means a visit to the great British countryside, cucumber sandwiches and Aunt Mabel and it means me cancelling your flight home.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I already have.”

“I thought you were my friend, Pippa,” Sasha said. “And now you’re bribing me? You’re… you’re a bitch!”

“Thank you. That’s about the highest compliment someone like you could give someone like me. I’m a bitch who owns you. I hope you realize that you’re nothing without me.”

Sasha folded her arms. She wasn’t about to be manipulated into something she didn’t want to be a part of. And the best way to fight fire, was with fire…

“You think I’m nothing? What about everything I know? Isn’t that worth something? Because it wouldn’t it be pretty disastrous to your PR business if this whole thing got out. If people realized this was all a big charade.”

“This thing won’t get out.”

“It will if I call up Kelly right now. She’d just love to hear my side of the story.”

Pippa laughed. “A fall-proof plan, Sasha. Except for this…” She held up a piece of paper.

“What is that?” Sasha said frowning.

“It’s a gagging order.”

“A what?”

“A legally binding contract between one Miss Sasha Jones and my client, Mr. Thomas Lloyd, explaining that you agree to not discuss the details of your relationship with my client with any third party persons.”

“I didn’t sign that.”

“I’m afraid you did.” She showed the signed document to Sasha. There at the bottom, were both her and Thomas’s signatures, witnessed and signed off by Pippa herself.

“But how…?” Sasha said. Then she remembered the paper’s she’d been asked to sign for the Amore deal. Pippa must have slipped this document amongst them. “You tricked me.”

Thomas was fuming. “You tricked both of us.”

              “Oh quit your wining, Thomas. You pay me to put your career first. I knew we couldn’t trust your flighty little skank girlfriend so I made sure we didn’t have to worry about it.”

Thomas pulled himself up to his full height. “Pippa, you’re fired.”

“What?” the English woman said, spitting out the word like it tasted bad. “You can’t fire me.”

“I sign your paychecks. That makes me your boss. So yes, I can fire you. You’re fired.”

Pippa raised a thin eyebrow. “If I were you, Thomas, I’d think very, very hard about what you’re doing.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Thomas said between his teeth. “What I’m doing is getting your toxic bullshit out of my life.”

Pippa stared at him for a moment. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyers,” she said, folding up the document and slipping it into her folder. “And good luck with this… whatever this thing is you’re doing. I give you a few weeks at most.” She stomped to the door and out of sight.

Sasha looked at Thomas. “You didn’t have to do that on my behalf.”

“Yes, I did. I’m sick of the games and the lies. I don’t want this to be a charade. I don’t want to lose you.” He turned and paced away. “I’m quitting.”

Sasha stood there stunned. “What? Thomas, you can’t…”

“I can. And I will. You’re more important to me, Sasha. I should never have gone behind your back like that. I should have been honest. It’s just…” he rubbed the back of his neck with his hand “It’s just that trust thing again. That paranoia. I didn’t think I could trust you because I thought you’d done something with Chris, so I didn’t treat you right. Can you forgive me?”

              Sasha’s stomach plummeted. If they were ever going to make this work, she had to be honest. She had to tell Thomas about Chris. He was quitting acting for her. They couldn’t start a relationship together on a lie.

              “Thomas, I need to tell you something.”

              Thomas frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

              “Sit down.” She led him to the bed and they sat together on it. “It’s about Chris.”

              Thomas’s face went pale. “You did sleep with him.”

              She shook her head. “No. But we kissed. It was a moment of weakness. I thought we were over. I thought you’d leaked the sex tape and…”

              Thomas cut her off. “You lied.”

              There was no come back. “Yes.”

              “You lied.”

“I know. Can we just wipe the slate clean and start afresh. Living that crazy life before made us do stupid things. But with you quitting acting we can be normal again. We can do things the right way.”

But Thomas wasn’t listening. He looked stunned. He stood slowly. “You made me believe I was crazy for doubting you.”

“Thomas, please…” Sasha began.

“This was all a disaster,” he said, hypnotically. “From start to finish. I should never have pursued you. This… this was all a huge mistake.”

              He strode to the door. Sasha leapt up and grabbed his hand before he opened it. “Thomas, it’s not over. Not like this. We work together. It’s the rest of the world that’s driving us apart.”

              Thomas shook his head. “Not this time, Sasha. This time you did it all on your own.”

              Sasha left the hotel and headed for her small apartment. She’d lost Thomas. After everything they’d been through, it was really over.

Her apartment was cold. It felt unloved. She closed the curtains and curled up on the sofa.

              She had hundreds of calls and texts she needed to answer, but right now, she had to see what the media were saying. She couldn’t help it. It felt like a compulsion. All the time she’d been with Thomas, she’d felt protected, like it didn’t matter what the world thought of her. But now he was gone she had to know.

              She logged on and began scrolling. Pippa had been right about one thing - the engagement had more or less buried the leaked sex tape scandal. But the fact the engagement was a charade had also made the gossip pages. Someone had sold them out. It could have been anyone - the security guards, the driver, Tina or Joe, or anyone else at Amore. There were plenty of people who’d sell their story to make a couple hundred quick dollars.

              Sasha’s phone began ringing. She didn’t recognize the number. She hit receive.

“Hello?”

“Sasha, darling, it’s Pippa.”

Sasha’s blood ran cold. “What do you want?”

“I just wanted to let you know that Christopher’s interview will be on television tomorrow. It’s going to be explosive. He’s telling everyone all about your affair.”

Suddenly, it dawned on Sasha. “It was you who told him to do this, wasn’t it?”

“A little tip, sweetheart,” Pippa said coldly. “Get a password for your phone.”

“You stole his number?”

“After you told me about Thomas thinking you’d had an affair, I couldn’t resist. I thought it might come in handy if you ever tried to backstab me.” She spoke in a syrupy sweet voice, one that made Sasha feel nauseous. “When I said you were going to become a reviled woman, I meant it. No one crosses me, Sasha. No one.”

With that, the phone went dead. Sasha sat staring at it in her lap.

Chapter
Twenty Two

Keys poised in her hand, Sasha Jones stood at the front door of her mother’s home. She was trembling, making the keys jangle in one hand and the suitcase she was holding quiver in the other. She knew her mother would always welcome her in, but she still couldn’t help but feel nervous.

With a deep breath, she turned the key and stepped inside.

The familiar smell of her childhood home made emotion roll through her. Her mother, Julia, was on the shabby, old, floral sofa, facing the television. The wheelchair she needed to use to get around because of her MS was beside her.

“Hello, Mom,” Sasha said.

Julia turned her head to look over her shoulder. She smiled sympathetically. “Welcome home, sweetheart.”

Though Sasha had known—deep down—that her mother would always support her, it came as a huge relief to see the love and kindness on her face, and to know, at last, without a doubt, that she was accepted here no matter what. She burst into tears, dropped her suitcase, and bustled into the living room towards her mother. Once she reached her, Sasha flung herself onto the sofa and buried her head into the crook of her mother’s shoulder, feeling markedly younger than her twenty-three years.

“I messed up,” she gasped between sobs. “I messed everything up.”

Julia shushed her daughter and smoothed down her hair. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Do you think you’re the first girl to get duped by a man?” She chuckled. “It’s a story as old as time.”

Sasha sat up and wiped the tears from her eyes. “But it wasn’t any man, Mom. It was Thomas Lloyd.”

Just saying his name sent echoes of pleasure rippling down Sasha’s spine. The English actor had been the only man to show her what it really felt like to be a woman. He’d shown her what her body was capable of and taken it to heights of joy to which she never knew it could be taken. He’d whisked her to the other side of the globe, taken her to glitzy events, and given her orgasm after explosive orgasm.

But Sasha should have known that the whole world would be against them. From the intrusive paparazzi to Thomas’s junky sister leaking a sex tape, to his calculating publicist, Pippa, tricking her into a faux engagement, there was never going to be a happy ending for the young journalism intern and her older, famous beau.

Yet, it had been Sasha’s own actions that had caused the demise of her relationship with Thomas. The one thing that Thomas Lloyd could never forgive was betrayal, and Sasha had let her ex-boyfriend, Chris, kiss her in a moment of weakness. Then she’d lied to Thomas about it, shattering his trust forever. That moment, more than anything else they had gone through, had led to the end of their relationship.

“I was such an idiot,” Sasha said, as she sobbed to her mother.

Julia stroked her hair tenderly. “I must admit, I thought you were far too sensible to get caught up in all that kind of stuff. Award shows and modeling contracts, that’s not you, Sasha! You were always so studious.”

“I-I know,” Sasha stammered. She wished she could explain it, even to herself.  “I don’t know what happened. It was just…Thomas. I just couldn’t resist him.”

“You mean you’re in love with him.”

Sasha shook her head. “No. No. It wasn’t like that. I mean that there was a chemistry between us.”

She thought back to the amazing times they’d had sex together, the way their bodies had fit together perfectly, like jigsaw pieces, the way their mouths had moved against one another’s in perfect symmetry. Thomas Lloyd was a sexual magnet, and she just couldn’t pull her body away from him. But there was no way she could explain that to her mom....

“He was...persuasive, I guess,” she concluded with a little shrug.

Her mom squeezed her hand and gave her a knowing look. “You fell in love with him.”

Sasha was going to protest again when her stomach sank. Had she fallen in love with Thomas Lloyd? Was that what that magnetism was, that feeling that no matter what she was drawn to him?

Yes, she and Thomas had shared some amazing times in the bedroom, but it was also true that they’d bonded on a deeper level. Sasha was the first woman to whom Thomas had shown his scarred body, the first woman with whom he’d made love in the shower and with whom he’d explored his kinky fetish. There had been more to them than just lust and sex. There had been genuine affection.

But the last thing Sasha needed right now was a broken heart to go along with her bruised ego.

She stood up, attempting to halt the conversation in its tracks.

“Coffee?”

Julia smiled. “It’s nice to have you home.”

Sasha patted her mom’s shoulder. “It’s nice to be home.”

But as she walked along the hall towards the kitchen, she couldn’t ignore the feeling of grief sitting deep in her stomach. She
was
in love with Thomas Lloyd. And
she
, not the world, had driven him away.

***

Sasha and Julia sat at the kitchen table together, sipping cups of steaming black coffee. Sasha had noticed that the house had gotten shabbier since she’d moved out. It had taken her a long time to find the cafetière, and when she had, she’d discovered it was covered in dust and grease. Her mom just wasn’t able to care for herself as well as she once had. And that meant the MS was progressing.

Sasha felt a wave of guilt wash over her. Though her mother had always wanted her to succeed and follow her dream of becoming a journalist, Sasha still felt bad for putting her own needs over her mother’s, especially since she’d given it all up in the blink of an eye for Thomas Lloyd.

“How are things here?” Sasha asked tentatively, her hands wrapped around the steaming mug.

“Fine,” Julia replied.

It was her stock reply, but Sasha knew better. She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

Her mom shifted in her seat. “Well, it’s gotten a little messier since Chris stopped coming around.”

Chris
. At the sound of his name, Sasha felt ice spread through her body. His betrayal hurt her more than anything she’d been through. Chris had always loved and supported her, even when she’d chosen her studies and career over him. He’d always been like one of the family. But that was something being with Thomas had taught her—sometimes, even family couldn’t be trusted.

She clenched her hands around the porcelain mug with anger. “Did you watch him on TV?” she said through her teeth.

She regretted it as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Part of her didn’t want to know. The things Chris had said about her, the sexy secrets he’d given away, the person he’d painted her out to be—a manipulator, a seductress, a cheat—they were things she never wanted her mother to hear about her. But she needed to know how clued up her mom was on the situation.

With her hands cupped around the coffee mug, Julia frowned. “Chris is on TV?” she asked. “Why? Is he an actor now or something? Is that why he stopped coming over?”

Sasha let out a huge sigh of relief. Her mother was clueless. She hadn’t seen the interview. The whole thing must have passed her by, but her relief was replaced swiftly by anger. Chris hadn’t just let her down, he’d let her mom down, too. He’d dropped them both in hot water.

“He did an interview, Mom,” she explained. “It was about me.”

“What about you?”

“About my relationship with Thomas.”

“Why would anyone want to watch an interview about you and Thomas…?”

“Mom, it doesn’t matter. Just do me a favor, will you? Don’t watch it. None of it is true, and it’s less than complimentary.”

Her mom looked even more bemused. “But I don’t understand. Why would Chris go on television to talk about you? He was always so fond of you, of the family. He was like a son.”

“
Was
,” Sasha said with a sigh. “But he’s not anymore. When Thomas fired his publicist for me, she wanted to get back at me. The best way was through Chris. Let’s say she helped stir up some ill feelings between us, and then Chris took the easy way out, he went for the money.”

“Well, then, maybe you should sell your story as well?” her mom said with a shrug. “Counter sell, if such a thing exists. Your story is certainly more interesting than his!”

“Nice idea,” Sasha replied. “But for legal reasons, unfortunately, I can’t.”

There was a gag order, stopping her from speaking to the press. Pippa had tricked her into signing it. There had been plenty of offers, but she couldn’t take any of them up without risking getting sued. And without a job or Thomas backing her, a lawsuit would financially cripple her.

Julia shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t understand the world these days. Are people really willing to pay Chris money because he once had a relationship with you and you once had a relationship with an actor? And you’re not able to talk about it, but he is? It’s madness!”

Hearing her mom sum it up like that made the gravity of the situation hit Sasha all at once. Tears started creeping up her throat.

“I can’t believe I ruined my career for…”—she had to stop herself from saying ‘mind-blowing sex’—“...him.”

“Well, he is
very
handsome,” her mom replied. “And very rich.”

“Mom!” Sasha cried. However, she couldn’t help smiling. She’d needed a light-hearted reprieve.

The older woman reached across the table and squeezed Sasha’s arm. “You’re home now,” she said. “Everything will be okay.”

But Sasha couldn’t help feeling that it wouldn’t, that nothing would ever be okay again....